Dr. Hirsch

Bad night of sleep.

Kept thinking about Dr Hirsch who had spent some time with us in the field. He had been assigned as a stress assessor and was supposed to observe our interactions with each other and the civvies we'd encounter. Basically, I think he wanted to see if any of us had gone loco yet and he made three trips out with us. I also saw him in Germany when I came out of my coma.

I remember he carried a note pad in a sand brown folder but I never saw him writing in it, just kept it tucked under his arm. A lot of the time he would sit at the edge of our group, not saying a word as we talked and bullshitted each other. At times, he would be so quiet you'd forget he was there but then when you remembered you'd feel like he was judging what you were saying, how you were siting, every action you were performing.

I guess I was thinking about him because when we last saw him, he was working with dogs at Al Asad Airfield. They were barking like crazy when I got on the plane to come home. He just stood there, watching me and Garcia as we were getting into our humvee to take us out to our plane. waved but he didn't acknowledge at all. Still held onto his notepad as the dogs barked and circled around him.

I remembered him asking me questions one night as we sat wound a small fire next to our bombed out palace. He wanted to know about where I grew up at, what my parents thought of my being there, whether I was bullied in school. Reminded me of the psychological exams we went through before we got shipped over.

I don't think I told him much. When you're out with your brothers, men who would die and kill for you, you remain very guarded with outsiders. Doesn't matter if they have bars and birds or are just civilians. Every question could be an attack, a way to separate us from each other or to get in with us.

So, Dr. Hirsch tried to take us one-by-one and ask us innocent questions but none of us fell for it. By the third trip we seemed to have reached an understanding and he mainly observed. It wasn't long after that third visit that we took heavy hits and I wound up in Germany

-Soldier ZD